jumping in with my 2¢ on Zestiria bc I definitely think it's worth a shot!!

It has its flaws, but I think both the ppl who put the alleged queer subtext on a pedestal AND the ppl who complain that the whole game etc is terrible are both exaggerating

imo a lot of the hate it got was exacerbated by it not meeting ppl's expectations, so anything that COULD be complained abt was complained abt excessively (i wasn't there at release and avoid larger tales circles that recycle that complaining whenever it's brought up so grain of salt with that)

As for the queer subtext.. think abt a shonen anime with two male characters that are Ultimate Friends or the like. It's abt as much 'intentional queer subtext' as that (tho i wouldn't downplay the importance/impact of Sorey and Mikleo's relationship in the game based on that)

In any case, it's just a game that happens to be noticeably imperfect. I remember during the tutorial section saying "this kinda sucks, I'll play it just to say I played it" (since im a bit of a tales game completionist), then I ended up loving it and immediately replayed the whole game ajdksk and now it's one of my favorites ✨

[also just a tip if you haven't heard!! Except for some big main story ones, skits are locked to save points and inns. if you wanna see as many as possible, I recommend always checking save points and staying at each new inn repeatedly as soon as you arrive until you don't get a skit. Also keep in mind that quests and story beats may unlock new ones, so check back at inns frequently!

I missed so many skits my first playthrough bc I didn't realize how many inn skits there were ;w;]

anyway, I hope you like the game!! and that I didn't accidentally make it sound worse sjxkd

No, you didn't make it sound worse at all! You actually made me really want to play it now, or at the very least, I'm super curious to try it out for myself! I think that I'm going to get it during the Steam summer sale so I won't have to pay $50 for it. Thank you for being honest about the flaws and the strengths! And thank you for the tips!

Honestly, Tales of Symphonia is my all-time favorite game. And I KNOW that it's flawed, so I am absolutely willing to overlook flaws in a game.

[24 May 2022] First, I love your demo, your art, god I can't get Ren out of my head since the first time I played. Now my stupid questions. Ren gets asked on the street if he cosplayed Haruko? Since he is a walking cosplay And.... Where do I sign my marriage certificate with Ren?

Ty ty!! ♡ Ren has been stopped maybe 2 or 3 times out in public due to the striking similarities between him and Haruko, but in actuality, he /doesn't/ look 100% like Haruko! He only took the hairstyle and dressing-style aspects of Haruko and ran with it ^^'

For reference; Haruko's design is much more vibrant and his hair is faaaar more fluffier. Plus you have to take into consideration that Haruko is an anime character in Ren's world (whereas Ren is considered human)

Also Ren’s on his way with the marriage certificate right now 💀

He was about to kill you, Lex. Or divulge something you didn't want me to know.

— SMALLVILLE, "Forever" (4.21)

+ bonus from "Arctic" (7.20):

I love three houses discourse because I'm pretty sure everyone just picks their route based on which house leader they're the most gay for and then tries to defend their pick by pointing out the other sides's war crimes via twitter memes. Reader, all four of them do substantial quantities of war crimes. So many. We're just here because the woman with Issues and a big fuck-off axe said so, and then we gotta justify everything she did in the name of dismantling the class system. I mean, I'm here for that, but you could also try justifying Charm Man uses poison and perfidy to try to stop racism, A Sad Little Meow Meow gives no quarter instead of doing therapy, or the Thicc Pope tries to bring back her mom via human experimentation, depending on your tastes

pest control TWO!!!!! heres the first one

adn heres the obligatory bonus bc i can't help myself :')

I feel like I've seen most of what interests me in FiMFiction for the time being, so I read through some good ol' reliable Stardew Valley fanfics last night, only to realize.

Haley x Female Farmer is basically Rarijack. Rarijack adjacent.

Listen y’all I just. I jsut *clenches fists* I love Pokemon so much,

It’s just a fun game with little critters!! You can name them! And form bonds with them! And battle with them!! And you can witness a story unfold! And travel throughout so many fun and distinct regions, each with their own history! And make friends and enemies alike! And it’s a game that can be played differently by anyone! You can strategize and take on hard challenges! You can play silly minigames! You can be a completionist and fill the entire Pokedex! It caters to everyone! And the mainline games are only the tip of the iceberg! There’s so much to do! It’s so fun! It has brought the world together!! I LOVE YOU POKEMON!!!

Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

is this a safe space to admit that i didn't know that andrew was the love interest until "doesn't mean i wouldn't blow you"????

no of fence to jon snow fans who for some reason care about his exact age, but these discussions just annoy me no end. not only bc there's no way any weirwood flashbacks bran has to rhaegar/lyanna will come with time/datestamps, but also bc there's always comments like this:

SEVERAL turns of the moon (ie, months)?! have these people never seen a human baby before or just have no concept of their ages? even if we take into account travel time from the toj to wf, meaning jon was not a newborn too fresh out the oven when catelyn and robb arrived, there's still a difference between a newborn and a 3mo and an even bigger difference between those infants and an older baby 5-7mo. there's very good reasons these lines were cut. whatever birthdates can be worked out internally for jon and robb from when they're first mentioned as 15 and 16 don't matter in the end, bc grrm doesn't care about a consistent timeline and the actual text of catelyn's pov and ned's convo with robert about cheating on her should outweigh any guesstimates about jon's official nameday wrt robb's. catelyn may not have cared for jon, but she would sure as hell have noticed his nameday if it came before robb's and made him ned's firstborn. if jon's birthday canonically came before robb's then either ned's cover story would not involve adultery (not impossible for him to sire a bastard before his wedding), or he'd just give jon a new nameday along with his new name to fit the adultery lie. it makes no sense for him to lie about one and not the other, undermining the big lie with a little public clue of his story not adding up. whatever else she was as a stepmother, cat wasn't stupid and a bastard who was actually the eldest son being raised alongside her trueborn heir could be an even bigger insult than whether he was born of adultery or not.

BUT, the unknowability of jon's true birthday is not the only reason this annoys me, it's bc this is all based on the assumption that jon must be older since rhaegar/lyanna ran off together before ned married cat, as if both boys must have been conceived asap as robb canonically was when his parents consummated their marriage. and that's not how human reproduction works! even if you don't understand how fast babies grow in the first year, you should know that people who get pregnant do so through ovulation cycles and a lucky sperm finding an egg and all that, not just immediately getting knocked up as soon as one has p-in-v sex for the first time. not unless you only know mean girls sex ed where if you have sex you will get pregnant and die. (even tho lyanna did die, there's plenty of canon examples where pregnancy did not lead straight to death. also examples of people who did not get pregnant right away and even some who are/were sexually active and childless without always having moon tea on hand.) we can't know how long lyanna was having sex before that sperm+egg match happened or even how long she was with rhaegar before losing her technical virginity. if they were married, doesn't it make sense to think they didn't consummate their relationship until the wedding night either? that's the only leverage there is to ensure a status as wife rather than just mistress.

and while i just said grrm doesn't care about exact timelines and a lot is still foggy surrounding the rebellion and esp rhaegar, there is one timemarker wrt robert's rebellion he voluntarily threw in, time and time again: that stannis was besieged at storm's end for almost a whole year. that siege, which mind you, did not match the duration of the entire war. it only started after robert won his battles at gulltown and summerhall, returned to storm's end, and then went out and lost the battle of ashford, leaving his homeland open to the reachermen. the same siege which only ended when ned made a detour there after the sack of king's landing, before going to the toj. even if lyanna may not have given birth that exact day ned found her, she could only be waiting in that bloody bed for weeks at the most, not months. so if rhaegar knocked her up the very same night he carried her off and jon was still a newborn when ned found her after the siege of storm's end had ended, wouldn't that mean lyanna was pregnant for well over a year? that's not how human pregnancy works either! so, maybe that's proof that jon and robb, whichever order they were actually born in, were actually very close in age as babies, much closer than if they were both conceived asap.

and really, jon's actual birthdate does not matter imho, when he was raised not just as the bastard to robb's trueborn heir, but with robb also known by catelyn and the world as ned's firstborn (which he was, in any case, as jon was ned's nephew by birth). what difference could a birthdate before robb's make (even were there some means of discovery) after ned, cat, and robb are all dead? if one is looking only at his birth parents then he's only a firstborn child on lyanna's side, but definitely a second son on rhaegar's side. maybe he was always meant to be a second son with a not much older half-brother! even if the aegon fka young griff is not in fact rhaegar's son, he'll still be known as aegon vi targaryen, meaning jon will never be known as any father's elder son. if i may reference mean girls again, it's not going to happen.

this was originally supposed to just be the first image and i was supposed to stop there

then i decided to shade and finish it bsdhfbshjdfvdsjfds

i've never been able to draw devimon and finish a piece with it at the focus before now so i'm pretty proud of this

also the wings are heavily inspired by ST-344's artwork!! it's giving distressed jeans vibes (/j)

recent sketches

Tiny Token 3rd set

hello friends. despite my 9 million existing dreamling wips i'm feeling the need to branch out a bit for the sake of my mental variety. what pairing other than dreamling should i write a little something for? could be romantic or platonic

other way of phrasing i guess: any pairings you really want to see more fics for in the fandom?

Marrassurma, God of Death (and Dreams) from The Abyssal

bonus Sol bc the hand kiss scene is cute